A friend of mine found a religious origination distributes newspaper published by them at the company he works for. In his opinion, the newspaper is full of lies and extreme issues. So he filed a complaint to the company, trying to ban the newspaper. After investigation, the company came to the conclusion that the newspaper does contain offensive and political material that is against company’s media regulation (they didn’t mention lies though). Therefore, the company banned the newspaper. However, my friend just got a phone call from that publisher. They threatened to sue him since he has slandered the newspaper. I guess he released his identity incidentally when he was chatting at a forum group on the Internet. Now the situation is he may have difficult of proving that the newspaper tells lies, but his complaint did go to the company management only. In this case, does he really have to worry about any defamation charges?
Thanks a lot,
Jack

Hello Jack:

Yes. I would say he has a worry. Although companies don't usually sue over the phone. Talk is cheap. If he gets served with papers, he should probably hire a lawyer.

excon

Hi,
I second the idea of hiring a lawyer, IF he gets any papers saying he is being involved in a lawsuit.

Yes, and actually sorry but I am glad they may do this, he is forgetting that finding a news paper lying around, he choose to pick it up and read it. He was not forced to. And others at this work place may well believe in this view point.

If he called this information lies in public, he will have to be able to prove it is not true in court if they wish to sue him.

If the company has rules about no handing out of information ( none at all) this is one issue, but when they start saying what is allowed and what is not allowed only because someone finds it offensive, Any and everything can be offensive, most likely the material he prefers is offends someone.
The "lies" told about Bush on a lot of news papers offends me, but that does not mean I have a right to try and get it banned from my work place.

I would say that he does have a lot to worry about and I hope he does not mind renting from these people after they own his house and car.

Thank you guys for your replies.
My friend definitely needs a lawyer if he gets served.
My original post might be too brief. Here are more details: after the company banned the newspaper, my friend posted an article about what he had done at a very popular local discussion group on the Internet with an ID he has been using there for years. Several days later, the newspaper called him, accusing that he has no right to request to ban the newspaper and he violates freedom of speech. They also threatened that their lawyer would contact him. As I mentioned in the original post, my friend may have difficulty proving the newspaper is telling lies, even though a lot of people agree to his opinions.
As to how the newspaper found him, I believe since the company he works for has a lot of members of that religious origination, it wouldn’t be surprising if some of them happen to be the viewers of that discussion group. At that discussion group my friend has posted a lot of things including personal stuff, which give them good clue to find out his identity. His company is fairly large, and I don’t think they released any of his personal information.
Several things confuse us:
1. When the newspaper called my friend, they just talked about his complaint with the company without mentioning his post on the Internet. I guess maybe it is hard for them to confirm his identity in cyber space. Then how likely does the newspaper accuse his post on the Internet? (His post has triggered a big discussion attracted over 10,000 hits)
2. Realizing being involved in a potential libel action, we checked the defamation law and found out one confusing thing: it is said that one of the three elements of the tort of libel is the libel has been made to the third party. Here the third party is the company management only (Let’s focus on the original complaint for now), and the management is supposed to evaluate the complaint against all facts collected after investigation and company’s regulations. The influence of the complaint really couldn’t go beyond the management. Therefore, we couldn’t see the point how my friend’s unprofessional remarks (the newspaper is full of lies) can libel the newspaper. It would be interesting to see the similar cases about libel action caused by complaints, if there are any.
Thanks again,
Jack